“Maybe I... maybe someone should stay with you tonight. In the apartment, I mean.” Melvin had insisted on coming up all the way up to the twenty-third floor with Hildy, provoking a knowing grin and wink from Lindy as the other two had piled out of his van onto the sidewalk in front of Hildy’s apartment building. Now the skinny man hovered nearby and shifted his feet as she punched in the access code that unlocked her door. “In case Doctor Fang sends someone after you again.”

Ping. The door popped ajar with a slight clunk. Hildy sighed and closed her eyes for a moment, somehow resisting the urge to pinch at the bridge of her nose. She arranged one of her smiles on her lips and pointed it at the man beside her as she pushed the door open.

“Melvin. Thank you. I appreciate the offer. Really. But I’ll be fine. Fang’s probably already halfway back to Tibet. Go home. Lindy will be waiting to give you a lift back to your place. Happy New Year. Good night.” She slipped smoothly inside, leaving not an extra inch of space.

“But I told him that-”

The rest of Melvin’s comment was cut off as Hildy closed the door and brushed the touch-pad that brought on the lights. (Jimmy had had all the latest gadgets installed...)

She paused for a moment and looked around, as she always did at this point. Partly it was caution; even before tonight, she had been jumped one too many times by assorted lurking vermin over the years to just stroll into any room, no matter how secure the lock on the door.

Locks... She turned and started clicking the various deadbolts into place, her fingers performing the actions automatically. She never carried the key to her apartment when she was out on assignment; another lesson learned through bitter experience. Now on the outside there was only the keypad...

Finished, she turned back and leaned against the door for a moment, regaining her strength for the last push, up and over the top. She blew at a strand of dark hair that had escaped from the bun it had been tied into by Fang’s goons. It wobbled and came back into her face. She ignored it.

Caution was only part of it. As she put aside the heavy white paper sack holding the last of the donuts and shrugged off Lindy’s well-traveled coat (note to self, take that back to him at the Times tomorrow...) she looked around the wide living room, looked at all the things that Wolfgang’s team of natty little minions had lugged in when their leader had decorated the place. Expensive, tasteful things from various expensive and tasteful parts of the globe, carefully positioned under the proper sort of lights, set in front of the row of tall windows that gave a panoramic view of the city’s skyline. A few last fireworks could still be seen going off here and there in the distance, silent behind the thick glass. The smoke from the opera house was out there somewhere as well, rising invisibly into the night sky. Back on this side of the glass, the Christmas tree stood in its assigned corner, looking rather prim and sterile with no presents under it. Hildy brushed another pad and the curtains slid silently shut.

The second reason she had to pause... she always had to take a moment at this stage to remember that this really was all hers, at least in terms of signatures on pieces of paper. When it came right down to it, she was far more familiar with the view from the passenger’s seat of Lindy’s van than she was with the contents of her own apartment. Hell, before Lindy had finally broken down and started using digital cameras with his work, she was more familiar with the ramshackle darkroom in his apartment, and she had practically pressed her shape into the man’s threadbare sofa taking catnaps while pictures developed...

Her gaze fell on the piano in one corner of the room, and for a moment remembered that girl of Fang’s comment about teaching people how to play it. Yes, Hildy knew how to play, sort of, but she hadn’t found time to sit down at the instrument in... well... it had been months now. How did Fang learn these things... She turned away irritably, and started to toss the coat on a nearby side table, then looked at the table’s finish and had second thoughts. Lindy was the best photographer on the Times’ staff by a long shot, and after her own father and the Commander probably the man she most respected in the world, but his presence and his possessions could by simple contact strip barnacles off of the hide of whales.

She hung the coat up in the nearby closet and smiled as she pulled it straight.

Straighter.

A little.

She started to go towards the next target, then had one last thought and checked the peephole in the door. It was more than possible that Melvin was still lurking around somewhere nearby, trying to ‘protect’ her, but at least he had thought to get out of sight of her door. Hildy had a standing arrangement per the little twit with the building security people, and if he was there, they’d gently escort him outside after a while. She sighed a second time, reclaimed the donut sack and plodded towards the waiting bathroom. The bathroom and more importantly, what was waiting there for her.

Well... not plodded. She walked on the balls of her feet across the expanse of thick white carpet. The last thing she needed after this week’s activities was to make Carlotta mad by leaving dirty footprints.

The bathroom.

The bathtub.

It was large and deep and had a nice little padded seat built into it, and it was probably the only place in the apartment where Hildy had truly worn the edges off of things. She set the water to foaming, squirting in a few glops of the bubble-bath liquid as well. (The latter was one of the few Christmas gifts from Penelope that Hildy had ever truly appreciated...) While the tub filled and the bubbles started to rise, she switched the now-grimy toga for her bathrobe and tossed the first garment into the trash, holding it with two fingers. wishing she had a pair of metal tongs handy instead. The automated lid of the trash can snapped shut in a most satisfying manner.

That only left...

Her hair.

She turned very slowly and looked into the mirror. A rather frazzled-looking woman in a white bathrobe looked back her. The woman’s hair was filthy, smelling of donut sugar, burnt buildings and Lindy’s cigarettes (and...) but still...

The steam rose behind her and made odd twisty patterns in the air.

Still staring into the mirror, she watched as the woman reached up with a hand, took hold of the thing that had nestled in her hair, and pulled it free with a single quick yank. For some reason, she expected a surge of pain, like a knif... like being st... but in reverse.

But no, it came out smooth and painless and the woman’s hair fell free. Finally looking away from the mirror, she turned her examination to the thing in her hand. It shimmered seductively in the lights from the hilt down to the.. the end.

She looked at it for a very long time.

She had forgotten to turn on the fan, and now the mirror started to steam over, leaving everything faint and indistinct.

“This isn’t going to work.”

Shimmering...

She looked back at the shape in the mirror. Who was saying these words? What the hell did they mean?

Nothing. Nobody was saying anything, speaking slowly, carefully, painfully connecting absolutely no mental dots...

“This just isn’t going to work. It’s a clone! That means it’s like him. If some punk could have just stabbed him with a...” The shape waved a blurry limb... “...one of these, he’d have been dead years ago.”

She had been imagining things. She shrugged and walked back over the garbage.

“Of course, maybe it’s a special one, made of some strong metal...”

She took the toga back out, wrapped absolutely nothing in it, stuffed it back into the can, packed it down tight.

“But no. It won’t work. Jimmy couldn’t plan a decent murder if his damn life depended on it. We’re doing this my way...”

She got in the tub, turned on the radio. Found some soothing music. Leaned back and closed her eyes. Fished in the sack and found a donut. Powered sugar; her favorite and she munched at it slowly. At least Melvin was good for some things...

Hildy floated off into a half-sleep, her eyes nearly lidded, a last couple of crumbs still on her lips...

A button pushed, a number speed-dialed itself.

“Jimmy? It’s Hildy. I assume I didn’t get you up? Like I was saying earlier. I need you to arrange a meeting with the Commander. In person. It’s very important... What? No, I don’t want to interview him... Well yes, OK, I do, but that’s still not what this is about. Here’s where I want him to meet me..”

Hildy smiled as she walked... tiredly limped... to her position the center of the vast echoing chamber. It had taken hours to set everything up, but it was ready. She had had certain advantages, of course. Knowing which of Jimmy’s factories were currently mothballed. Hell, having grown up in her father’s house, with Jimmy, she had picked up more than a few bits and pieces of technical knowledge. The hardest part of it all had been overriding the various safeties...

She bent over with a little wince of pain, and scooped up the control box that was lying there waiting for her, its thick cable snaking off into the dimness.

Just then one of the outer loading doors began to trundle up, and the rather watery sunlight spilled in from outside. She straightened up and moved her hand so its burden was hidden behind her body. There was a shape standing now in the rectangle of light, a tall dark outline with wide shoulders. It stood motionless for a long moment, then walked forward, walked towards her.

The clone. She realized it in an instant. The man... the thing’s... walk was all wrong, blocky and mechanical, not smooth and flowing like the real Commander. There was no sense of a coiled spring, wound up tight in the background, waiting to be unleashed at a moment’s notice.

The clone’s armor flashed bits of gold, catching stray shafts of light from the high windows that lined the eastern side of the factory floor.

It spoke, just as it stumped its way into position and swiveled its head in her direction.

“Hildy. You said you needed to see me?”

Hildy’s smile stretched wider. It had somehow gotten out of her control for once.

“That’s right.”

She pressed a button on the control box, jammed it down hard, and there was a grinding shriek. The cable overhead, already stretched to the breaking point, gave up as the last support was snapped away.

The enormous block of machinery the cable had been holding up came whistling down. To Hildy, it seemed to take forever to fall, tumbling as it did, but in reality it was only a second or two. The clone snapped its head upward, the glowing blue eyeslits of its helmet pointing towards heaven, then raised its massive arms. For a moment, there was a flickering bit of doubt in Hildy’s mind... (This isn’t going work, it’s actually going to catch it...)

Then the block hit. It surpassed all her expectations, in that it not only smashed down the clone, but ripped right through the old floor, the whole thing falling down to the level below with a horrific grinding crash. More sounds followed, splinterings and breakings and then finally there was a very ominous silence. Hildy stood still for a moment, then inched her way to the edge of the hole and peered over. It looked very messy down there. Very messy indeed, and a small shriek of triumph escaped her lips.

Hildy blinked and looked around. A strange unpleasant sound was ringing in her ears, and she was...

Where the hell was she?

A large mostly-empty room, with a few pieces of shrouded machinery looming up here and there. Some kind of abandoned factory. There was an enormous hole in the floor in front of her. It was freshly made and pieces were still falling into it. She stumbled backwards a couple of steps then stared at the thing in her hand. A control box for a hydraulic system, standard Johanson Industries issue. They’d practically been her toys when growing up. Then she looked down further and saw the state of the rest of her clothes.

What had happened here?

“Hildy?”

She started and spun around, almost falling into the hole in her surprise. There were two figures there, one tall, one fairly short, both armored and muscular.

“Commander? Jimmy?” She blinked, and suddenly a key turned somewhere in her mind with a sharp click and she remembered. “The clone! I killed the clone!” She spiked the control unit like a quarterback who was just scored a game-winning touchdown. “I’ll bet you thought I couldn’t do it, didn’t you!”

Jimmy glanced at the silent Commander before replying.

“Yes. The clone. We never doubted you for a moment, Hildy.” The Commander remained silent, studying the scene from behind his mask. A bit of stray breeze caught his cape and billowed it around. A coiled spring, ready to go into action. Jimmy went on. “You’ve had a long day, Hildy. We’ll take it from here. Melvin’s got a cab out front, and he’ll take you back to your apartment. Get some rest.”

“Rest? Nothing doing! I’ve got to get to the Times and... and...” Hildy blinked and staggered again. When had she last slept?

Not since last year

“OK. Right.” She rubbed vaguely at her eyes, rearranging the dirt. “I’ll... I’ll do it later. In the morning. Out... front you say?”

Jimmy pointed.

“Right.” Hildy moved away, the surge of adrenaline burnt out in an instant. She was angry with someone, so angry that she could claw their eyes out with her fingernails, but she was also tired... so tired... She would work it all out in the morning...

Jimmy watched her go, then looked over at the Commander.

“How the hell did you know?”

The Commander was looking down into the hole as he replied.

“I knew he’d done something. I know how the man thinks, better than anyone.”

Jimmy looked down into the metallic carnage as well, his expression that of a man who has just sucked down a whole jar of dill pickles.

“You do know how much that piece of junk cost me, don’t you?”

“42.3 million dollars.”

“42.34, to be precise. And now I get the privilege of picking up the damn pieces, all fifty-six thousand of them.”

No reply. Jimmy glanced towards the door, where Hildy was just disappearing out of sight.

“She will be all right now?”

The Commander finally looked over him.

“If by that, you mean ‘will she be the way she was before Fang kidnapped her’, after she gets a good night sleep, yes. She clearly didn’t suffer the same treatment as Miss Hollister.” The Commander turned. “But I will go make sure anyway.”

He disappeared.

Jimmy flickered a smile with one corner of his mouth and took his partner’s place staring down into the hole. Then, very deliberately, his eye rotated itself to the proper position, activating a certain control in his suit. A recorder gave off an efficient little buzz.

“Note to self. Never ever make Hildy mad at me.”

The woman pushed open the door and stepped out into the light. She was tall and very blonde, and she now wore a starched white nurse’s uniform that fit tightly around her lean, well-sculpted body. Her only other ‘garments’ were a pair of gloves and a simple gas mask settled over her mouth and nose. Behind her, before she closed the door, could be seen a dark space tightly filled with kneeling motionless figures, all quite clearly female, all bathed in throbbing lights and sounds. Tendrils of aromatic smoke drifted out into the room before the nurse shut and locked the door with a firm thump and click. The lights and the sounds were cut off, and the smoke was whisked away by the air conditioning system. The only thing left was the slow trickling sound of a harp, and quite faint, the throb of powerful engines. The nurse removed the mask and put it away in a nearby cupboard. From a small sleek refrigerator hidden behind a lacquered panel, she produced an IV bag with a dangling cord. The fluid inside was clear. Taking this, she padded on bare feet down the strip of thick crimson carpet, down the long narrow ‘room’ that was the interior of the jet. On one side, there was the source of the music, an intensely black-skinned woman kneeling blank-eyed before the enormous silver-stringed instrument and plucking the slow trickling tune from its depths. On the other side stood the muscled bald-headed man with the equally-enormous sword. He was swinging the weapon in flashy but precise sweeps around his body, spinning it effortlessly in and between his hands. It seemed to be an almost active part of his dance, a live thing waiting to lash out, but she walked within inches of its bite radius without a flinch, without even seeing that it was there.

She arrived at her destination, a towering throne of a chair with wide arms studded with controls. The tall skeletal man sitting in the chair had been studying one of the many flashing monitors arrayed before him, but seeing her, he turned from this and slid up the silken sleeve of his robe, revealing an arm that was somehow both skinny and knotted with muscles. There was a permanent tap there, waiting for the IV’s probe, and the nurse silently plugged that probe into place, made the proper adjustments, hung the bag on the golden hook that waited for it. The fluid within started to drip, like the notes from the harp, one sweet sliver at a time. Her task completed, she peeled off the gloves, and dropped them into a waiting slot, which sucked them away with quiet efficiency. She knelt down next to the chair, joining the Japanese woman who were already there. Joining her, staring up with eyes that matched those of the harp-player, blank and utterly worshipful.

Doctor Fang spoke.

“Yvette. All is well with our guests?”

The nurse nodded once, and he reached out and stroked the shining helmet that was her hair with the tips of his fingers, once, a slow exacting gesture, and she blinked for a single precise moment. It was her only outward reaction. He then dismissed her from his attention and returned to studying the monitors.

Finally Jinn finished his exercises and took his own seat nearby. (Not nearly as luxurious as Fang’s but still padded and comfortable.) A single woman knelt there, as lovely as the rest, with smooth brown skin and shiny black hair that reached almost all the way down her back. Her expression was not quite the same as the others, less focused, more placid, but her gaze never left Jinn’s face. As soon as the swordsman was settled, she silently passed him a small silver tin and a white cloth, and he started polishing the sword’s blade. Fang studied his various readouts for a time longer, poking at one or other of the controls, and then looked over at the other man.

“Your report on the satellite situation?”

Jinn spoke without looking up from his work.

“A minor matter. One of the lesser technicians in the division boasted to a woman during his off-hours. He was trying to impress her. Now, it is he and his co-workers who have been suitably impressed.”

“And the woman?”

“She already... belongs to Madame Li. Thoroughly belongs. There was no need to take further action in that area.”

“And Lu Fan and Chan?”

“As per your orders, more appropriate positions have been found ones of their caliber.”

Fang nodded.

“I am pleased. You are authorized a visit to the Chambers of Reward upon our return, if you should so desire it.” Jinn gave a sort of bow without rising from his seat. Fang studied him further, his eyes narrowed to black slits. Finally. “Speak. I would hear your thoughts.”

Jinn replied promptly, but carefully, still not looking up.

“You seem to have taken your... setback... well.”

Fang almost smiled.

“The rage was there. It has been dealt with. And while the Y2K glitch has failed...” He gestured towards the door from which the nurse had emerged. “There are always contingency plans. The satellites are still on schedule to be launched, and my new strike-force proved themselves most worthy, able to steal the needed materials from the warehouse even while fighting Commander Amazing. After you and Madame Li have given them a through and proper training... mental and physical... Miss Tanaka and the rest of my...” He actually did smile this time, a flickering thing, formed like a crease in a piece of perfect origami... “‘Piranha-Bees’... will have stings that have been honed to razor sharpness.”

Jinn hesitated before going on, but only for a moment.

“And Miss Johanson? Do you have any orders regarding her?”

Fang steepled his fingers, and his eyes glittered. Lilly and Yvette swayed in perfect unison, then were still again, their expressions never changing.

“When the time is right, I will be giving Hildegard Johanson my personal attention. She failed me this time in the task with which I have assigned her, but it has reached my ears that unlike certain other failures of late, it was most... impressive. She has true steel and fire that one, so rare for a member of her sex. In the end, I will show her the way. She will come to me, she will kneel before me, and she will offer up to me Commander Amazing’s head on a silver platter. And she will think she is doing these things entirely of her own free will. When she joins you and Madame Li at my side, nothing and no one will be able to stand before me.”

Jinn said nothing, but went on polishing, his face revealing nothing, until Fang turned back to his monitors, when he shot the other man a single short glance from under his brows.

There was only the harp and the engines.

The sleek black jet cut its way on through the night, rising above the clouds and heading off into the sky, dwindling finally to a pinpoint and then nothing at all against the hard unchanging stars.

THE END. BUT...

STAY TUNED FOR THE NEXT EXCITING

ADVENTURE OF COMMANDER AMAZING AND JIMMY...